Playland Park

8th July 2009

We met up with Martin and Kat for a pre-arranged session on the Kiddie Coaster (#1385), a ride that is normally off limits to adults. To my surprise this junior wood coaster featured a copious amount of airtime while still being friendly for its target audience. Any park contemplating the purchase of a Wacky Worm would do far better with a ride like this one. From there the park generously treated us to four exclusive laps on the Dragon Coaster, a completely unexpected bonus. The hospitality shown to us by Playland Park today wa second to none, and very much appreciated.

I decided to watch my friends as they enjoyed their lap on Super Flight; there are not many coasters I won't repeat but only a bribe would get me back on a Volare I've been on already. Though they tried to tell me it was okay the facial expressions in the photograph told a different story, reproduced above for posterity!

On my previous visit to the park I'd missed out on the Family Flyer (#1386). With that out of the way we headed for some of the other rides. There are three dark rides at Rye, the best of which is the Flying Witch though the Old Mill is pretty impressive too. There was also a Whip which lived up to its name (ouch!) and an antique Carousel that moved at an impressive speed. The last ride of the morningwas a quick spin on the Crazy Mouse before we headed onwards.

Casino Pier

8th July 2009

In the planning stages for this trip we contemplated heading back to Six Flags Great Adventure, but with no season passes this year it made sense to postpone until a later date. Casino Pier was the obvious substitute, with a new coaster in the guise of Pirates Hideaway (#1387). The new ride has been beautifully themed in a manner that would stand out at any fairground anywhere in the world. Inside the structure is a spiral lift hill mechanism akin to the Zamperla Volare rides that leads to a mid sized family coaster. The layout is fairly simple but it works well.

Keansburg Amusement Park

8th July 2009

The Schwarzkopf-built Wildcat (#1388) still operates with its four original four seater cars, but due to no block brakes only one is allowed on circuit at a time. This coupled with a complete lack of urgency results in painfully slow operation. We joined a fairly short line that still took the better part of an hour to clear, thanks to average dispatches every three minutes. Worse yet, not all the cars were full. It wasn't much of a surprise to learn that while wristbands are available they only include a single ride on the coaster. The queue time would likely be measured in weeks otherwise.

Foreign travellers should be aware that in the United States it is apparently illegal to park against the direction of traffic. I'd like to thank the concerned local citizen who told us about this, potentially saving a nasty traffic fine!

NJ State Fair

8th July 2009

One final stop on the way to our hotel was at the New Jersey State Fair. I'd actually ridden the three coasters before at the Ohio State Fair a few years before, but George got to add the Avalanche, Crazy Mouse, and Wacky Worm to his count.